As for the 5 year wait period for a healthy baby, I think that's on the high end, all of my sources say an average of 2 years, there are always exceptions though, but I'm pretty sure 5 years is on the extreme side.

However, being half Chinese, with family in China, my wait period would likely not be as long as others. More likely around the 3 year mark, which isn't bad at all, although I'd have no problem waiting 5 years. We are also looking at adopting from Taiwan though, and I believe their wait period is shorter, but we'll see what happens when we get there. We don't plan on having children for a long time, and maybe the wait periods will go up, or maybe they will go down.

It's not "close minded." The reason these places exist is because the birth parents, who feel they can't provide for their child, want their child to be taken in by someone who shares the same faith as them.

It's not just in America. There is an adoption program in Taiwan where Christians who can't take care of their children can put their children up for adoption knowing that another Christian family will be taking care of their child.

Think about it. If you plan to adopt you can pick gender, race, etc. Well this is just vice versa, the parents want a Christian family to raise their child.

I didn't say it was in the US. I dislike the idea of picking gender and race too actually. And plenty of US-based Christian international adoption agencies are involved in the adoptions of non-Christian children (with non-Christian parents), so it's hardly limited to parents wanting an intra-faith adoption.

If your sister's parameters are that open, she might consider looking at both the shared and agency-specific lists of "special focus" waiting children rather than just waiting for a referral. We know a few families adopting from China right now, and this is the route they have all taken. China REALLY wants the special focus children placed, so my understanding is that the process is sped up for them. Is she willing to adopt a boy? There are apparently far more boys waiting in China than girls, b/c everyone wants to adopt girls for some reason.

Open adoption is not like co-parenting or shared custody. It's really more like having in-laws than anything else I can think to compare it to. Our son's birth mother chose to place him for adoption and she picked us out to be his family. She is actually really into us being his parents. She doesn't try to interfere with the way that we raise him or anything. From what I have heard from our social workers and other adoptive families, this is pretty typical.

We email her photos and updates about once a month, at the same time that we email photos to grandparents and such. It is just a matter of adding her email address to the photo-sharing thing, that's it. We have had maybe four in-person visits in the past year and a half, the same number she has requested. She lives nearby, so visiting is not a big deal. Many placements end up being in different states or hours away, many families in open adoptions visit maybe once a year, or once every few years, or not at all.

We do not have an official open adoption agreement. I can't imagine ever needing or wanting to cut off contact. But if some crazy unforeseeable thing happened, we could do that. We are his only legal parents. Even if we had a formal OA agreement, these are not even legally enforceable in our state. They are considered "gentlemen's agreements." Even in states where OA agreements are legally enforceable, violating them does not jeopardize the adoption. Every OA "contract" I have seen includes a clause stating that if the adoptive parents ever decide that this relationship is not in the best interests of their child, they can cut off contact. I would never advise any adoptive parent to make promises that they plan to break. Promises might not be legally binding, but they are morally binding. BUT if your sister is afraid that this relationship will get out of hand or be beyond her control, that is just not something that she needs to fear.

I've noticed that. Lots of countries--not just China--have a surplus of adoptable boys because everyone snatches up the girls. The wait for a referral from many countries is much shorter if you are open to adopting a boy. In fact, even if you look into adoption from the American foster care system, it seems that all of the young, healthy girls are snatched up but there are plenty of very young, healthy boys still waiting for homes. I wonder why it is that everyone wants girls. A century ago it was the other way around; America used to have "orphan trains" that went across the country dropping off orphans in rural towns (link to Wikipedia page), and the boys were much easier to place with families because they could help on farms and with small businesses. Now that American families no longer depend on helping hands with manual labor, girls seem to be preferred, and I suspect it's because of little girls' cuteness factor. Every mama wants a little girl to dress up and spoil. Maybe there are other reasons, but it's just really unfortunate for all the little boys out there who sit in orphanages and foster homes while childless families wait 5+ years for a little girl.